slammer

after Jan Beatty

this is for the hecklers/my stage time soiled with their catcall of approval/what did I expect
being friends with male poets/this is what happens when you write good poems/for the man who asked my permission to stay silent/because it made him feel safer/because it wasn't his rape in the poem he'd written/& for the man who took the poem about rapists personally/it's ironic you feel victimized/it's ironic you said it's my fault/because there are men who show up/& call that organizing/& feel fine taking credit for work done by a woman/this poem is a gravesite/get yourself a shovel/here's one for my former mentor/the one who fucks his students as soon as they're 18/he said they're old enough now/did you count down the minutes until midnight on their birthdays/& for the one who didn't wait, with or without her permission/with or without sincerely trying to teach her anything in the first place/& for everyone who said I should be grateful for male approval/& the women who are grateful for male approval/as our tongues got minced or led to the slaughter/as we were shot by the man on the other side of the door we knocked on when we had nowhere else to turn for help/& our unconscious bodies were raped into a party trick/& laughter slammed us against the lockers every day/the only ones who showed up were the cameras/& all the histories we'd written got voted out of the cannon by a panel of men/yet our arms stay in the booth selling merchandise/yet our legs stay in case we're asked to stand & be recognized/since whether or not you're listening you won't have to live it/this poem is your tombstone/get yourself a chisel.